Note: Originally I had a long background explanation leading up to why I was trying to perform apt-get remove g++. I have deleted that as irrelevant after trying this in a clean install of 11.10 (32-bit) and then, after upgrading, in 12.04.

It appears to be a problem only 12.04. Time to change focus and see if this is a reported bug.

I did not find anything that looked related so I reported this as Bug #982716.

While attempting to get rid of a problem compiling Octave I removed all the packages needed to compile Octave so I could then re-install them. While doing this I ran into an unexpected response from apt-get in 12.04.

When I attempt to remove the g++ package, apt-get instead attempts to install g++-4.6. I expected to get the message Package g++ is not installed, so not removed. Why didn't I?

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The only thing I can think of is that it might be part of one of those standard desktop program lists. Every desktop has, for example, a simple text editor. Some use gedit, but there are many replacements. Maybe g++ is one of those, and so apt is selecting another package that provides that feature and it just happens to be a different version of g++
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HuckleApr 16 '12 at 3:17

Given that this was know confirmed as a bug, this question is now considered as relevant only to as specific moment in time and hence has been closed as too-localised. Thanks.
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fossfreedom♦Apr 21 '12 at 20:49

@irrationalJohn Bug tag is a meta tag. It has no use on this site.
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jrg♦Jun 13 '12 at 16:46

@jrg Oh. So the bug should be deleted from this site then, no? Or are you saying that there is one common set of tags which is shared by both the main and the meta sites of Ask Ubuntu?
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irrational JohnJun 13 '12 at 16:47

@irrationalJohn It is a 'meta' tag in that it has no useful meaning - if it really is a bug, then it shouldn't be posted here to begin with! So the tag is more or less useless.
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jrg♦Jun 13 '12 at 18:16